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Discovery and Early History 



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New Jersey 



£>> WILUAM NELSON 




I he Discovery and Early riistory 

of 

New Jersey 



A Paper Read before the Passaic Count}) Historical 
Societ}), June //, 1872. 

By William Nelson. 



fl^l 



fi 



^^ 



One Hundred Copies Printed, A. D. 1912. 



[The original manuscript having turned up accidentally in the sum- 
mer of 1912, this address has now been printed precisely as written 
forty years ago, without revision, correction or addition, except two 
or three foot-notes, enclosed in brackets.] 



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!i)2; 



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THE DISCOVERY AND EARLY HISTORY 
OF NEW JERSEY 



INTRODUCTORY. 

In this age of "p^'ogi'^ss," — of the steam-engine, the 
hghtning printing-press, the locomotive, the ocean tele- 
graph-cable, and universal hurry and bustle; in these days 
of new inventions, of labor-reform, social-reform, and 
world-and-mankind-reform generally — it is well for us to 
pause once in a while, step aside out of the on-rushing 
tide of human "p^'og^'^ss," calmly to observe where we 
stand and whither we are drifting, and then look back to 
see whence we came. Thus we can judge as to the actual 
progress we are making, if any ; and if we use our faculties 
aright we can see many errors committed in the past to be 
avoided in the future. And, thus contemplating the situa- 
tion, it will be strange if there do not involuntarily arise 
the exclamation, Cm bono? For what good have we 
been toiling, pushing, crowding forward in such tumultu- 
ous haste? The actual progress of mankind is infinitely 
slow; it takes almost as long to pass from the "age of 
stone" to the "age of iron" as it would for a well-behaved 
monkey to develop into some kinds of men we know. So 
we might as well move more deliberately, not consuming 
with the fires of impatience, but restraining our impetuosity 
and saving our strength for use when and where most 
needed, only doing our appointed tasks well, satisfied to 
leave the issue to Him who hath foreseen all things to the 
end of time, and to whom "a thousand years are but as 
yesterday when it is past." 



To one who thus withdraws himself, in spirit, from the 
concerns of the present, and gazes backward, how much 
is there calculated to inspire him with feelings of admira- 
tion, of emulation, and of humility! He sees that there 
have been men as wise, as noble, as true, as good, as 
generous, as any now living ; that there is really very little 
in theology, sociology or politics that has not been dis- 
cussed by men whose grandchildren have long ago turned 
to ashes; that the blatant "reformers," so self-styled, who 
arrogate to themselves the credit for discovering new ideas 
of one kind or another, are indeed but poor imitators of 
abler men and women whose names and systems were 
long since forgotten by a practical world that in the end 
preserves only the kernels of grain thrown into its vast 
thought-hopper; that we, who so exult in our superiority 
over those who are gone, are but fulfilling the destiny 
marked out for us a century ago, and, considering our 
greater advantages, are not doing so much better than our 
grandfathers, if so well. The study of the past inspires 
one with reverence, often, for the foresight of our prede- 
cessors, as we contemplate their sacrifices for the sake of 
principles essential to human progress and happiness. 

No higher heroism nor nobler manhood is anywhere 
exhibited in American history than may be found in the 
annals of our own New Jersey, and it therefore seems all 
the stranger that our early history has not been more gen- 
erally studied. TTie paper herewith submitted is a rough 
sketch of the leading events connected with the discovery, 
settlement and early government of our State, prepared 
in the hope that an interest in the subject may be excited 
not only among our people generally, but especially 
among those who, studiously inclined, have never deemed 
it worthy of investigation, only because its real importance 
and attractiveness have never been brought to their atten- 



tion. Though hastily prepared, the statements contained 
in this paper are made only on the best authority, and may 
be relied upon as correct. The authorities are cited for 
every statement of importance, for verification by the 
critical reader, and as a guide to the young student to the 
more available and useful works on the subject. 

THE DISCOVERY OF NEW JERSEY. 

This part of our history, or rather introduction to our 
history, has been but scantily touched upon by writers on 
New Jersey, and is doubtless familiar to but few, which 
may be considered excuse enough for dwelling upon it 
here at some length. Our information is mainly gathered 
from a valuable volume of "Collections," published by the 
New York Historical Society in 1841, being Vol. I, 
New Series, of the Society's "Collections." This volume 
contains accounts written by some of the very earliest 
visitors to the American continent, from whom we shall 
quote freely. 

Skipping over the traditional accounts of the discovery 
of the Western Hemisphere by the Northmen in the ninth 
or tenth century, or by the Welshmen in the twelfth 
century (vide Gentleman s Mag., March, 1 740, quoted 
in American Hist Record, June, 1872), let us remind 
you that while Christopher Columbus is credited with the 
discovery — or re-discovery — of the new world in 1492, 
the Western Continent was first discovered in 1497, by 
Sebastian Cabot, who was sent out by Henry VIII, of 
England, whence the English claim to supremacy here a 
century and a half later. In 1 498 Cabot coasted what is 
now the New Jersey shore. At that time no fashionable 
villas were "on the beach at Long Branch" ; no lighthouse 
at Cape May warned the mariner of danger; no fishing- 
smacks were to be seen in the numerous inlets along the 



coast. The land was covered with primeval forests 
through whose dusky glades strange forms glided. The 
whole country was novel and mysterious in the eyes of 
Cabot's crew, and we do not wonder that in such a 
superstitious age the people to whom, on their return, they 
told of this wonderful land, were loth to settle in such a 
mystic and uncanny country. So we have no record that 
Cabot or his men ever even set foot on the virgin earth of 
New Jersey. 

Capt. John de Verazzano, a Florentine, has given us 
an account of a voyage he made along the North Ameri- 
can coast in 1524, in a letter to "His Most Serene 
Majesty," Francis I, King of France, under whose orders 
he sailed in the good ship "Dolphin." In March, 1524, 
he coasted New Jersey — then, of course, unnamed — and 
he tells how one of his sailors, in trying to approach the 
shore to throw some trinkets to the wondering natives, was 
so buffeted about by the waves as to be prostrated, and 
Kow the Indians carried him ashore and restored him to 
consciousness, treated him with the greatest kindness, and 
then let him depart. Further on, Verazzano went ashore 
with twenty men, and captured a small boy to carry back 
to France, much as he would a dog or any other animal. 
"A young girl of about eighteen or twenty, who was very 
beautiful and very tall," only escaped captivity because 
she shrieked loudly as the sailors attempted to lead her 
away, and they had to pass some woods and were far 
from the ship. Thus the very first visit of the whites gave 
the Indians just cause to fear and hate them forever after. 

Verazzano greatly admired the country, which he says 
"appeared very beautiful and full of the largest forests." 
He "found also wild roses, violets, lilies, and many sorts 
of plants and fragrant flowers different from our own," 
which here for many a century had sprung up, blossomed, 



bloomed and "wasted their sweetness on the desert air," 
or perchance had from time to time afforded to Indian 
youth the means of indicating to some fair dusky maiden 
his modest attachment. Verazzano was so pleased with 
this neighborhood that he remained three days, and next 
entered, beyond doubt. New York harbor, with a boat. 
He "found the country on its banks well peopled, the 
inhabitants not differing much from the others, being 
dressed out with the feathers of birds of various colors. 
They came towards us with evident delight, raising loud 
shouts of admiration, and showing us where we could 
most securely land with our boat." However, he was 
driven back by adverse winds. (A^, Y. Hist. Soc. Col- 
lections, 2d Series, Vol. I, pp. 41-46.) He sailed next 
along Long Island, etc., but does not tell us what he did 
with his young captive. 

We might imagine the emotions of awe and wonder- 
ment that filled the breasts of the untutored natives of the 
new world when first they beheld their strange visitors, 
but we have an account that bears internal evidences of 
genuineness, handed down by tradition among the Indians 
from generation to generation, and obtained more than a 
century ago from the lips of ancient Delawares, by the 
Rev. John Heckewelder, for many years a Moravian 
missionary to the Indians in Pennsylvania. It may be 
found in the volume cited above, pp. 71-74. It probably 
refers to the subsequent arrival of Hudson, as the In- 
dians of his day had no recollection, or even tradition, 
it appears, of an earlier landing of whites, but the account 
may not be inappropriate here. We are told, then, that 
the Indians watched the strange object approaching their 
shore with feelings of mingled alarm, awe and wonder, 
finally concluding the ship to be "a large canoe or house, 
in which the great Mannitto (or Supreme Being) himself 



8 

was, and that he probably was coming to visit them." 
The chiefs hastily resolved themselves into a "committee 
of the whole," to arrange a suitable "reception"; the 
women were required to prepare the best of victuals ; idols 
and images were examined and put in order ; and a grand 
dance was also added to this extraordinary entertain- 
ment, on this most extraordinary occasion. "The con- 
jurors were also set to work, to determine what the 
meaning of this phenomenon was, and what the result 
would be. Both to these, and to the chiefs and wise men 
of the nation, men, women and children were looking up 
for advice and protection. Between hope and fear, and 
in confusion, a dance commenced. While in this situa- 
tion fresh runners arrive, declaring it a house of various 
colors, and crowded with living creatures. * * Other 
runners soon after arriving, declare it a large house of 
various colors, full of people, yet of quite a different color 
than they (the Indians) are of; that they were also 
dressed in a different manner from them, and that one in 
particular appeared altogether red, which must be the 
great Mannitto himself." The whites land, treat the 
Indians to liquor, who of course get drunk, and the whites 
leave after the friendliest interchange of mutual regards. 

More than three-quarters of a century seem now to 
have elapsed ere this country was again visited by the 
whites, Europe being convulsed with the great throes of 
the Reformation, and the accompanying wars that kept 
her adventurous spirits busily employed at home. Still, 
Spain was prosecuting the conquest of Mexico and Peru, 
and occasional adventurous sailors of other countries 
preferred to prowl over the seas in quest of Spanish 
frigates laden with the yellow gold robbed from the 
natives of the new world. This was a speedier way to 
fame and fortune, and vastly more romantic, than to settle 



in the unknown wilderness, thousands of miles away from 
home, and there patiently delve and plant, to establish a 
home. Canada, indeed, was settled as early as 1 535 by 
the French, who called their happy new home Acadia, 
and there lived the sweet, simple lives so charmingly 
painted by Longfellow, in "Evangeline." The Span- 
iards, too, laid claim to nearly the whole continent, or at 
least the Atlantic coast, possibly because one Gomez, a 
Spaniard, had about 1 525 sailed under their flag along 
the coast, and in 1535 we find a Spanish grant for 
Florida (settled in 1512), in which its boundaries are 
described as extending from Newfoundland to the 22d 
deg. N. Lat., or south of Cuba. Even a century later 
the Spaniards claimed all this country, and made incur- 
sions along the Virginia coast, and colonists to the New 
Netherlands were warned that it was "first of all necessary 
that they be placed in a good defensive position and well 
provided with arms and a fort, as the Spaniards * * 
would never allow anyone to gain a possession there. ' 
(Doc. Hist N. y.. Vol 3, p. 34.) 

Massachusetts was discovered in 1600, and in 1603- 
1632 Champlain thoroughly explored "New France," 
and skirted the New Jersey and Virginia coast, but his 
map of the country (prefixed to the volume just quoted) 
gives no idea of the shape of New Jersey, though he 
possibly refers to this neighborhood when he speaks of 
"the coast of a very fine country inhabited by savages who 
cultivate it." (Ut supra, p. 21.) 

The English now assumed the ownership of the new 
world, by virtue of Sebastian Cabot's long-forgotten dis- 
covery, and in 1606 James I, of England, gave charters 
for the territory between the 34th and 46th degs. N. Lat., 
or say from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to Newfound- 
land, the southern half to the London, and the rest to the 



lO 



Plymouth Company. (Cordons N. J., p. 5; Humes 
England, Vol IV, Am. ed., p. 519.) 

But the Dutch, proverbially slow though they be, were 
ahead of the "Plymouth Company," and in 1609 the 
Netherlands East India Company sent out Henry Hud- 
son, a bold English sea-captain, to renew for the second 
or third time a search for a northwest passage to China 
and the East Indies — a search that had been unsuccess- 
fully made a score of times before, as it has been since. 
[In 1595 one John Davis published in London "The 
World's hydrographical Description, whereby it appears 
that there is a short and speedie Passage into the South 
Seas, to China, &c., by northerly Navigation." Lowndes, 
Bohn's ed., p. 602.] Many of the directors of the com- 
pany opposed this expedition. "It was," said they, 
"throwing money away, and nothing else." However, 
Hudson was sent out April 6, 1 609, with a mere yacht, 
called the Halve-Maan, or "Half-Moon" — earlier pro- 
phetically called the Cood Hope — manned by a crew of 
sixteen Englishmen and Hollanders. He sailed north- 
wardly, touched Newfoundland, discovered Cape Cod 
and called that country "New Holland," as the French 
had previously called the country north of that, "New 
France," and as it was designated till the English con- 
quest in the middle of the lait century. (Lambrechisen, 
N. Y. Hist Soc. Coll, N. S., Vol. I, p. 85.) 

On Thursday afternoon, September 3, 1609, the 
natives about Sandy Hook saw a vessel approach from 
the limitless sea. It was the "Half-Moon," commanded 
by Hudson. With wonder, admiration and awe they 
gazed on the strange sight, but after their first astonish- 
ment wore off, these aboriginal Jerseymen went on board 
the vessel without hesitation, and seemed to be pleased. 
They were civil, and gladly exchanged skins, tobacco. 



II 



hemp, grapes, etc., for knives, beads, articles of clothing, 
etc., betraying a disposition to get the best of a bargain — 
a predilection that is popularly supposed to characterize 
the present race of Jerseymen as well. (Journal of JueU 
Hudson's Mate, ut supra, p. 323.) Hudson penetrated 
the Narrows September 1 1 th, and spent three weeks ex- 
ploring the noble river whose name now perpetuates his 
fame (though it was first called the Manahaita, the North 
river, the Rio de la Montagne, the Great river, and the 
Great North river) , sending a boat up as far as Albany, 
and perhaps above. He made no settlements, of course. 
With a crew of but sixteen men that would have been 
scarcely practicable. But he doubtless raised the Dutch 
flag and claimed the ownership of the country, by right of 
discovery, for his masters and the Dutch Government. 
He found the Indians changeable in disposition — some- 
times friendly, and then on the slightest provocation 
hostile. Possibly they still remembered the previous visit 
of the whites — when one of their families was ruthlessly 
robbed of a darling son, and were on the alert for a similar 
attempt by Hudson's men. One of his men — John Cole- 
man — was shot in the throat with an Indian arrow, and in 
one or two encounters Hudson's little crew killed ten of 
the enemy. At various places he found many friendly 
Indians, who welcomed him cordially when he went 
ashore, though he says they had "a great propensity to 
steal, and were exceedingly adroit in carrying away 
whatever they took a fancy to." They got up an enter- 
tainment for him, regardless of expense, serving up "some 
food in well made red wooden bowls," shot a couple of 
pigeons, and even "killed a fat dog, and skinned it in 
great haste with shells which they had got out of the 
water." (Hudson s Journal, quoted by De Laet, and 
Juet's Log of Hudson's Voyage, ut supra, pp. 289, 290, 



12 

300, 321-4.) Hudson returned with glowing accounts 
of the wonderful new country, and the Company sent out 
settlers and trading vessels in the next few years. The 
unfortunate Hudson came to a terrible end the year after 
his return to Holland. He was sent out once more to 
find that mysterious Northwest Passage, and discovered 
the Straits and Bay that bear his name, when in that 
desolate, ice-bound region his crew mutinied and sent him, 
his son and six faithful men, adrift in a small boat on the 
dreary ocean, and they were never heard of more. But 
his work was done. If he had not, indeed, discovered a 
new route to the Indies, he had discovered a country of 
far more importance to the world than the Indies have 
been or ever will be, and he had discovered a harbor that 
will one day receive the bulk of the products of the Indies, 
though he never dreamed that his name would yet be 
perpetuated in the title of a great and wealthy country, 
within whose limits tens of thousands of miles of iron 
roads would yet terminate, depositing in unbroken bulk 
the teas and the silks of the Far East, from away across 
the Western Continent. 

FIRST SETTLEMENTS. 

The first permanent lodgment on the shores of Nexv 
Netherland seems to have been made in 1613, when a 
trading station was established on the present site of New 
York. In 1614 and 1615 forts appear to have been 
built by the Dutch at Albany and at New York, and in 
1614 one was erected, it would seem, at what is now 
Jersey City — authority therefor having been obtained 
from their High Mightinesses of the United Netherlands. 
(Lambrechtsen and De Laet, ut supra, pp. 88, 291 , 299, 
305; Cordons N. /., p. 6.) Now settlers gradually 
strayed over to the unknown wilderness of the new world. 



13 

We may well believe that few men cared to take their 
families to this mysterious land, where "immeasurable 
woods with swamps covered the soil," and "savages lived 
in their coverts, clothing themselves with the skins of wild 
beasts," their heads covered with feathers, — a costume 
that must have given them a wild aspect, soon heightened 
in the imagination of the whites when a band of these 
savages would occasionally sally out and murder some 
settler. Despite the glowing accounts brought home by 
some travelers, the old-world people were loth to leave 
their settled habitations for the western hemisphere, even 
though New Jersey already boasted an astonishing attrac- 
tion in "the retired paradise of the children of the 
Ethiopian Emperor ; a wonder, for it is a square rock two 
miles compass, 1 50 feet high, and a wall-like precipice, a 
strait entrance, easily made invincible, where he keeps 
200 for his guards, and under is a flat valley, all plain to 
plant and sow." (Plantagenet's Description of NeTX> 
Albion, quoted in Whitehead's East Jerse"^, p. 24.) 
Apart from the uncertainty of settling in a new country, 
where the success of the crops would be dubious for years, 
the voyage across the ocean was a vastly different matter 
from what it is now. Instead of steamers of 3,500 or 
4,000 tons burthen, whose size prevents rolling in a great 
measure, making the passage in seven to ten days, by the 
most direct route: in those days ships or yachts of 50 to 
200 tons burthen were most common, and though as early 
as 1603 Gosnold had found a straight course across the 
ocean, yet for many years afterward mariners took the old 
route, "first directing their course southwards to the 
tropic, sailing westward by means of trade winds, and 
then turning northward, till they reached the English 
settlements." (Hume's Hist. England, Am. ed.. Vol. 
4, p. 519.) Or, as another writer, in 1624, says: "This 



14 

country now called New Netherland is usually reached in 
seven or eight weeks from here. The course lies towards 
the Canary Islands; thence to the (West) Indian Islands, 
then towards the main land of Virginia, steering right 
across, leaving in fourteen days the Bahamas on the left, 
and the Bermudas on the right hand where the winds are 
variable with which the land is made." {Wassenae/s 
Historic van Europa, quoted in Doc. Hist. N. Y., Vol. 
3, p. 28.) Hence we may be prepared to find that so late 
as 1 638 vessels seldom arrived at the New Netherlands in 
winter, and when De Vries anchored opposite Fort 
Amsterdam, December 27th, 1638, he and his fellow- 
passengers "were received with much joy, as they did not 
expect to see a vessel at that time of the year." (De 
Vries, in A^. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., N. S., Vol. I, p. 260.) 

Still, there are always adventurous men, and men to 
whom freedom and independence present a charm that 
will lead them to brave any and all danger — even the 
perils of a voyage over trackless oceans (for there was no 
Maury two and a half centuries ago, to map out paths 
over the "vasty deep," and the very winds), in rocking 
vessels, and the dangers of constant encounters with a 
savage and remorseless foe. And so we find ship-loads 
of colonists coming over from time to time, undeterred 
even by the massacres of entire settlements — as at Staten 
Island, in 1641, and at other places earlier. 

Accordingly, we find settlements at Bergen as early as 
1618; but that place must have increased but slowly, for 
it was not till 1661 that the village was large enough to 
be allowed a court arid a Sheriff, the court being com- 
posed of the Sheriff and two Schepins (magistrates), and 
not till 1662 that a church was started, $162 being raised 
to erect a log house, replaced by one of stone in 1680. 
{Alban}) Records, quoted in Whitehead's E. J., p. 16.) 



15 

Had there been 250 families (say 1,000 souls) in the 
settlement (which then covered all of the present Hudson 
county and part of Bergen county), it would have been 
entitled to a city government composed of an upper 
branch of three Burgomasters and five or seven Schepins, 
and a lower branch of twenty Councilmen. (Van der 

Donck, N. Y. Hist. Soc. ColL N. S., Vol 3, p. 240.) 

In 1661 a ferry from Bergen to New Amsterdam was 
established, and the undertaking seemed so risky that a 
monopoly had to be guaranteed, to induce anyone to 
operate it. In the year following we find that the solitary 
"ferryman complained that the authorities of Bergen had 
authorized the inhabitants to 'ferry themselves over when 
they pleased,' to the great detriment of his monopoly." 
{Albany) Records, quoted in Whitehead's E. /., p. 20.) 
Though the church building was begun as early as 1 662, 
as mentioned above, it was not till ninety-five years later, 
or 1757, that it had a settled pastor. (Rome^ns \st 
Ref. Ch. of Hacf^ensac^, p. 40. ) Even our old Totowa 
church was more enterprising than that, for it had a settled 
pastor in 1 756. 

It has been frequently asserted that the Puritans who 
sailed from Holland in 1 620 intended to colonize in the 
New Netherlands, but that adverse winds, or the 
treachery of the ship's captain, caused them to land much 
further north, at Plymouth Rock, instead of at New 
York, or in New Jersey. (Cordon s N. J., p. 7; Robert- 
son s America, quoted by Lambrechtsen, ut supra, p. 98.) 

In 1628 there were on Manhattan Island only 270 
souls, living there in peace with the natives. (Was- 
senaers Historic van Europa, N. Y. Doc. Hist., Vol. 3, 
p. 48.) But as the land was undeveloped, in 1629 the 
Dutch West India Company, anxious to encourage 
emigration to the new world, which had come into the 



i6 

possession of that Company (from the Netherlands East 
India Company), issued a prospectus in which rights and 
privileges were guaranteed to the immigrant, quite unusual 
at that early date. Any who undertook to plant a colony 
of fifty families in four years were to be acknowledged 
"patroons" of New Netherland, and allowed to occupy 
twelve English miles along the North river shore, or six 
miles each side, and indefinitely into the interior, to "for- 
ever possess and enjoy all the lands lying within the 
aforesaid limits, together with the chief command," 
privileges, franchises, appurtenances, etc., "to be holden 
from the company as an eternal heritage." This was 
absolute sovereignty, though an appeal was guaranteed 
the colonists in certain cases from the courts of the 
patroons. The colonists were also promised a minister 
and schoolmaster, "that thus the service of God and zeal 
for religion may not grow cool, and be neglected among 
them"; also, that "the company will use their endeavors 
to supply the colonists with as many blacks as they con- 
veniently can." Prior to this time two "comforters of the 
sick" "read to the Commonalty there on Sundays, from 
texts of Scripture with the Comment." The first Dutch 
minister in America was John Michaelis, in 1628; the 
first in New Netherlands was Everardus Bogardus, in 
1633, who is distinguished in history chiefly by reason of 
the fact that he was subsequently the husband of Anneke 
Jans, of Trinity Church fame ; the first regularly-installed 
Dutch pastor in New Jersey was Guilaem Bertholf, who 
was sent to Holland in 1693, by the churches at 
Acquackanonk and Hackensack, to be educated for the 
ministry, and was installed over those churches in 1 694. 
(A^. y. Hist Soc. Coll., N. S., Vol /, pp. 370-6; 

Wassenaer, reprinted in Doc. Hist. N. Y., Vol. Ill, p. 
42; Rome^ns \st Ref. Ck at Hack., pp. 39-40.) The 



17 

inducements to colonists above set forth were judicious, as 
only by extraordinary offers could settlers have been 
attracted. Writing as early as 1624, Wassenaer (ut 
supra, p. 36) w^isely said: "For their (the colonies') 
increase and prosperous advancement, it is highly neces- 
sary that those sent out be first of all well provided with 
means both of support and defence, and that being Free- 
men, they be settled there on a free tenure; that all they 
work for and gain be theirs to dispose of and to sell it 
according to their pleasure; that whoever is placed over 
them as Commander act as their Father not as their 
Executioner, leading them with a gentle hand; for who- 
ever rules them as a Friend and Associate will be beloved 
by them, as he who will order them as a superior will 
subvert and nullify every thing; yea, they will excite 
against him the neighboring provinces to which they will 
fly. 'Tis better to rule by love and friendship than by 
force." (Ut supra, p. 36.) It would have been well if 
the Dutch had always cherished this as a motto, and for 
England if she had laid it to heart a century and a half 
later. 

Several of the Directors of the West India Company 
immediately availed themselves of the extraordinary in- 
ducements above set forth, and with a promptness that 
has led to the belief that they purposely procured the 
granting of these concessions for their personal aggran- 
dizement at the expense of the Company, for the very 
first tracts of land taken up under this "Charter of Liber- 
ties," as it was fittingly called, were located by Wouter 
van Twiller for Van Rensselaer, Bloemaert, De Laet, 
and other Directors. One Michael Poulaz, or Pauw, as 
he is generally called, who had been in the service of the 
Company, in charge of a colony on the site of Jersey City 
(De Vries, ut supra, pp. 257, 259), "took up" that 



"section," by deed dated Aug. 10, 1630 (Whitehead's 
E. /., p. 17), and De Vries says called it Pavonia, 
whence the name of the ferry by which we cross to and 
from New York, via the Erie Railway. [Much erudition 
has been exhausted in explaining the derivation of this 
name. Mr. Geo. Folsom of the N. Y. Hist. Soc. derives 
the name thus: "The Latin of pauw (peacock) is pavo 
— hence the name Pavonia" But the name of the officer 
generally called Pauw was doubtless the familiar Dutch 
nickname or contraction "Pau," for Paul or Paulus. 
Hence the name "Paulus' Hook," by which Jersey City 
was most commonly known forty or fifty years ago. 
Hence, too, the family name Paulison, Powlson, Powel- 
sen, etc. It is possible, even, that Pavonia was an Indian 
name, though hardly probable. The Indians applied the 
name Arisseoh to the greater portion of what is now the 
lower part of Jersey City — a name perpetuated in one of 
the steam fire engines of that now metropolitan city.] 

Several other settlements along the river, at Hohuk, at 
Wihac, at Tappan, at Cemoenapogh (now Communi- 
paw — retaining the significant Indian termination pau, 
preserved in Ramapaw, Yawpaw, Pembrepow, Ramapo, 
etc., and possibly to be found in Om-po-ge, whence 
Amboy), etc., were made during the next ten or twenty 
years, but do not seem to have been successful in any 
important degree. The first colonies had all their houses 
built together, in a hamlet, for mutual protection, and 
during the day the planters went out about their farms. 
Occasionally the Indians would make a raid upon them, 
and thus the progress of the settlements was greatly im- 
peded. That at Communipaw was abandoned in 1 65 1 , 
and not re-occupied till ten years later. 

The Allan]) Records (quoted in Whitehead's E. /., 
p. 49, n.) mention Dutch residents at Acquackanonk as 



19 

early as 1640^; but at that time "Acquackanonk" — 
spelled in a score of different ways — seems to have been 
the name applied to the whole country between Newark 
and Hackensack, from the Passaic river on the west or 
north to the Bergen hill on the east, including a large part 
of the meadows. We have no accounts whatever of the 
history of this neighborhood prior to 1 679, when the 
"Acquackanonk Grant" was made by the English gov- 
ernment of the Province to a number of persons who may 
possibly have already occupied the country under the 
Dutch, but who are named in the deed as being from 
Bergen, to wit: Hans Diderick, Gerritt Gerritsen, Wall- 
ing Jacobs, Hendrick George, Elias Hartman, Johannes 
Machielson, Cornelius Machielson, Adrian Post, Urian 
Tomason, Cornelius Rowlofson, Simon Jacobs, John 
Hendrick Speare (or Spyr), Cornelius Lubbers, and 
Abraham Bookey. Several of these men doubtless came 
over from Holland, 1 658-'64 ; Gerritsen and Lubbers 
probably came from Wesel, in Holland, in 1664, and 
tradition says Gerrit Gerritsen settled at the site of the 
present Broadway bridge, on the Bergen county side, in 
1666. There were several Gerrit Gerritsens who came 
over between the years named, from different parts of 
Holland. "Hendrick Jansen Spiers (same as the above, 
doubtless) and Wife and two children" are named in the 
list of passengers in the ship "Faith," that sailed in De- 
cember, 1659, for the new world. "Cornelis Michielsen, 
from Medemblick," came over in the "Beaver," in April, 
1659. {Doc. Hist. N. Y., Vol. 3, pp. 52-63.) The 
tract embraced in the above grant is now divided up into 

*[This is an error, due to a mistranslation by a Dutchman of a 
document in Dutch, which Mr. Whitehead obviously was excusable 
for accepting. Meny years ago I secured a transcript of the original 
document, when it was found that it was not Acquackanonk that was 
referred to, but Accomac, Md. Note, 1912.] 



20 



Acquackanonk, Passaic Village/ Little Falls, all of 
Paterson south of the Passaic, and a large part of Cald- 
well. The Newark Toivn Records mention a commis- 
sion appointed in 1683 to run the line between Newark 
and "Hockquecanung," said commissioners being in- 
structed to "make no other Agreement with them of any 
other Bounds than what was formerly." April 6th, 
1719, the line was renewed, the commissioners "present 
from Acquackanong Mr. Michael Vreelandt, Thomas 
Uriansen, Garret Harmanusen." (Newark Town 
Records, pp. 94, 128.) In 1693 the five counties of the 
Province (of East Jersey) were subdivided into town- 
ships, and in 1694, to raise £79 12s. 9d., Acquackanonk 
and New Barbadoes together were taxed £6, 15s., as 
much as Newark, or one-twelfth of the whole. Ac- 
quackanonk would hardly undertake now to pay that 
proportion of the tax assigned to East Jersey. In 1699, 
Newark, Elizabeth and Perth Amboy joined in protest- 
ing against a certain tax levied by the Assembly, and 
appealed to the town of "Acquechenonck" among others 
to stand by them, but we have no record of any response 
ever having been made. (Whitehead's E. /., pp. 160. 
1 45 ; Newark Town Records, p. 113.) If the Acquack- 
anonk Town Records were in existence from the organ- 
ization of the township they would throw a flood of light 
on its early history, but diligent inquiry has failed to elicit 
any trace of them. We cannot tell when a preaching 
station was established at Acquackanonk; perhaps a 
Voorleser officiated here very early. Guilaem Bertholf 
served Hackensack in that capacity as early as 1 689, 
probably, and not unlikely officiated at Acquackanonk 
at the same time. In 1 694 the church at Acquackanonk 
was fully organized by the election of Elias Vreeland as 
1 [Incorporated in 1873 as Passaic Cit3^] 



21 



Elder, and Basteaen van Gysen and Hessel Peterse as 
Deacons, March 18, 1694. April 16, 1695, Frans Post 
was chosen Deacon. May, 1696, Waling Jacobse van 
Winkel was elected Elder, and Christopher Steynmets 
Deacon. May 2, 1 697, Basteaen van Gysen was re- 
elected Deacon. May 22, 1698, Elias Vreeland was 
chosen Elder, and Hermannus Gerritse Deacon. May 
4, 1699, Frans Post was re-elected Elder, and Hessel 
Peterse was re-elected Deacon, In March, 1 726, the 
church actually had a membership of 197, and 53 were 
added during the remainder of the year. In 1 727, too, 
there were twenty-five births and baptisms in the congre- 
gation. {AcquacJ^anonl^ Ref. Ch. Records, fols. 1-5, 
109-111, 329-331.) From these data there would 
appear to have been 200 families, at least, in this part of 
the country. ^ 

This notice of Acquackanonk has been unintentionally 
lengthened; but perhaps it may excite some of our older 
families to ransack their ancient garrets, closets, boxes and 
barrels, in quest of material for a really full history of 
Acquackanonk, The writer hereof would be very much 
pleased to see any old deeds, maps, manuscripts or papers 
of any kind throwing light on this subject. 

But to resume: The West India Company had in 
1621 sent out Cornelius Jacobse Mey to locate colonies 
in the New Netherlands. He touched first at New York 
and called that harbor Port Mey, with all the assurance 
of an original discoverer; then he entered Delaware Bay, 
and called the respective capes, "Cape Cornelis" and 
"Cape Mey" (the latter retaining the name to this day), 
but he made no settlements. There is pretty good evi- 
dence that the Dutch did establish a colony here as early 
as 1 623-6, which was massacred by the Indians, 1 63 1 . 
(Doc. Hist. N. Y., Vol. 3, pp. 49-50.) 



22 



Swedes settled on the Delaware between 1631-40, 
retaining a precarious hold, fighting the Indians, the 
English and the Dutch, till at last they were expelled 
from their principal fort by a "foe that appeared in 
countless hosts, alike incomparable for activity and per- 
severance, and obtained possession of the fort, and the 
discomfited Swedes, bathed even in the ill-gotten blood of 
their own enemies, were compelled to abandon the post, 
which in honor of the victors received the name of Mos- 
chettoeshurgy (Cordons N. /., p. 14.) All hopes of 
Swedish empire in the new world were effectually dissi- 
pated by sturdy old one-legged Peter Stuyvesant, the 
doughty Governor of the New Netherlands, who raised 
the Dutch flag over the Swedish colony in 1655. The 
Dutch governed this colony by Lieutenants, who were 
empowered to issue grants of land, the deeds to be 
registered at New Amsterdam. We might say here that 
the Swedes bought the land of the Indians and were 
authorized by the crown to hold it "so long as the grantees 
continued subject to the (Swedish) government"; full 
sovereignty of the land was secured to the crown, the 
company paying an annual tribute to the crown, in return 
for which they were granted absolute sovereignty. Under 
the Swedish government, no deeds of land were given by 
the company; at least, there are no traces of any, except 
those which were granted by Queen Christina. The 
Dutch issued a great many after 1656. "No rents were 
in the meantime received, since all the land was neglected, 
and the inhabitants were indolent, so that the products 
were little more than sufficient for their subsistence." 
When the English came, the people were summoned to 
New York to receive deeds for their land, which they 
either had taken up, or intended to take up. The grants 
were made in the Duke of York's name ; the rents were a 



23 



bushel of wheat for 100 acres, if so demanded. A part 
of the inhabitants took deeds, others gave themselves no 
trouble about the matter, except that they agreed with the 
Indians for tracts of land in exchange for a gun, a kettle, 
a fur jacket, and the like; and they likewise sold them 
again to others for the same price, as land was abundant, 
inhabitants few, and the government not vigorous. Hence 
it appears that in law-suits respecting titles to land, they 
relied upon the Indian right, which prevailed when it 
could be proved. Many who took deeds for large tracts 
of land, repented of it from fear of the after demand of 
rents (which, however, were very light when the people 
cultivated their lands), and on that account transferred 
the largest part of them to others." which their descend- 
ants doubtless exceedingly regret. {History of New 
Sweden, in A^. Y. Hist. Soc. ColL N. S.. Vol I, p. 
427.) The conditions of the Swedish grants were much 
the same as the Dutch "Charter of Liberties." but were 
more liberal, allowing unrestricted commerce and manu- 
factures in the new colony. Provisions were also made 
for the evangelization of the natives. After the Dutch 
conquest most of the Swedes left the country, but those 
who remained were left in undisturbed possession of their 
lands, on swearing allegiance to the new rule. {Cordons 
N./., pp. 12-14.) 

In 1634 the territory between Cape May and Long 
Island Sound was granted by the English to Sir Edmund 
Ployden. and the tract was erected into a free county 
palatine, by the name of New Albion. He is thought to 
have established a puny colony on the Delaware, near 
Salem, about 1 641 . but it was crushed out by the Swedes 
and Dutch, and English plans for the conquest of the 
New Netherlands again came to naught. The Dutch at 
this time offered, indeed, to sell out to Ployden their West 



24 

Jersey possessions for £2,500, which not being accepted 
they raised their demand to £7,000, and finally, became 
indifferent to any compromise, seeing that the English 
settlement was far weaker than their own. ( Whitehead's 
E. /., pp. 8-9; Gordons N. /., p. 10.) 

There are vague traditions of a settlement on the Dela- 
ware, near Minising, by Dutch miners, as early as 1 635. 
(Gordon sN. J., p. 10.) 

Settlements were also made at Perth Amboy as early 
as 1651, when a large tract of land was bought of the 
Indians (Whitehead's Perth Amho^, p. 2), and a Dutch 
colony planted. 

Here let us remark, that the Dutch west of the Hudson 
do not seem to have been particularly enterprising — not 
as much so as those of New Amsterdam, or New York — 
but this apparent want of enterprise may indeed be 
attributed to the lack of information on our part concern- 
ing the Dutch settlers in New Jersey. For one thing, we 
have had no such veracious chronicler as Diedrich Knick- 
erbocker, to do for the Jersey Dutch what he has done 
for the New York Knickerbockers, and 'tis to be feared 
the time for such an historian on our side of the Hudson 
hath passed. Perchance, were our Legislature as liberal 
as those of Massachusetts and New York, in their appro- 
priations in aid of historical research, the archives of the 
Holland government might throw a great deal of light on 
our early history — say prior to the English conquest of 
this colony — and might show that the original Dutch 
stock of this State was as able, active and intelligent as 
that of any other State or Colony in the country. It is 
to be hoped our Legislature will not much longer delay 
to procure all the available material that will throw light 
upon our earliest history, in the days when the sturdy 
Dutch "planters," as they were called, still met the 



25 

Indian face to face among the forests or on the plantations 
of the New Netherlands west of the Hudson, and by 
patient toil made possible the glorious present that we 
enjoy. ^ 

But another element was now about to be introduced 
among the settlers of New Jersey — an element that has 
left its impress upon our State not only, but upon the 
whole country, as a similar body of men has seldom done. 
The Puritans who come so near landing about New 
York in 1 620, seem never to have lost sight of the New 
Netherlands, and forty years later (1661-3) we find 
them corresponding with the Government of New York, 
with a view to settling in New Jersey at the "Arthur 
Cull" — the Achter Koll, as the Dutch called it; i. e., 
behind the hills, the Navesink hills; from a corruption of 
these words comes the name "Arthur's Kill," applied to 
the river so called. (See TV. Y. Col MSS., Vols. IX 
and X, quoted in NeTvark Bi-Centennial, pp. 157-166.) 
These Puritans subsequently (in 1666 and 1667) settled 
in Newark, and their descendants have since furnished the 
State with perhaps a majority of the men who have been 
eminent in legislation and government, to say no more. 

In all cases of permanent settlement up to this period 
the land appears to have been regularly bought of the 
Indians, and perhaps at fair prices, though now, of course, 
it would appear supremely ridiculous to think of buying 
all Essex county for "fifty double-hands of powder, 1 00 
bars of lead, twenty axes, twenty coats, ten guns, twenty 
pistols, ten kettles, ten swords, four blankets, four barrels 
of beer, ten pair of breeches, fifty knives, twenty hoes, 
850 fathoms of wampum, two ankers of liquors, or 
something equivalent, and three troopers' coats." (£. /. 
i[This hope has been realized in the generous appropriations by 
the Legislature, for the publication of the New Jersey Archives 
Note, 1912.] 



26 

Records, Lib. 1, fol. 69, quoted in Newark Town 
Records, pp. 278-9.) And certainly $250, and $70 
yearly rental, would not be considered a fair compensa- 
tion for the territory included in Paterson, Passaic, Ac- 
quackanonk and Little Falls! (Whitehead's E. J., p. 
49.) 

THE INDIANS IN NEW JERSEY. 

Just here let us speak briefly of the dusky aborigines 
who inhabited New Jersey ere the whites came. It is 
exceedingly difficult to estimate their numbers. Living as 
they did, it were impossible for them to support them- 
selves in large families or tribes close together, and hence 
they were doubtless continually on the move, or sending 
off branches of tribes to find new homes. People who 
lived almost entirely by hunting and fishing necessarily 
required extensive tracts of territory for their subsistence. 
A work published in 1648 (quoted in Whitehead's E. 
J., p. 24) says the natives in this section of the continent 
were under about twenty kings, and that there were 
"1200 under the two Raritan Kings," so that Mr. White- 
head estimates the Indian population of New Jersey (or 
perhaps East Jersey) at about 2,000, in 1650. This 
seems to me a low estimate, that might be safely multi- 
plied by five and be nearer the truth ; but the data are so 
meagre that all figures under this head are little more than 
guesswork. From various writers (Wassenaer, 1624; 
De Laet, 1625; De Vries, 1632-43; Van der Donck, 
who came here in 1 642, being the first lawyer in the New 
Netherlands, cited in the Doc. Hist. N. Y., Vol. 3, and 
A^. Y. Hist. Coll., N. S., Vol. I, already so freely re- 
sorted to; also Cordon's N. J.), old Indian deeds (the 
Tappan, Totowa, Singack, Acquackanonk and Newark 



27 

Patents), and local traditions, we have accounts of a few 
Indian tribes in this part of Jersey, as follows : 

The Sanhicans, about Raritan Bay, generally well 
spoken of; next north the Reckatvangk and Machkenti- 
rvomi or Mechkentoxvoon; then the Tappaens, and two or 
three tribes at Esopus. We also have frequent notices of 
the Indians of Ack'mkeshackv, Hack'mgsack or Ack'mg- 
sack, who seem to have had dominion west of the Bergen 
hill to the Watchung (Garret) Mountain, north to 
Tappan, and southerly to beyond Newark, one Oralany 
being their chief or sakim in 1640. (De Vries.) West 
of Garret or Watchung Mountain the Pom-pe-tan or 
Pompton Indians probably held sway, and beyond them 
the Ram-a-paughs. I have not been able to ascertain 
whether or not any other Indian names hereabouts were 
names of Indian tribes. Acquackanonk, Sicomac ("Shig- 
hemeck," it is written in the Totowa patent, the Indians 
reserving it in the deed — it is understood for a burial 
place), PreaJiness, Wanaque, Yawpan^, Paramus (or 
"Perremmaus"), Singack or Singheck, Watchung, Ma- 
copin, etc., are quite certainly descriptive names of places, 
and probably Totowa refers to the Great Falls, which 
were sometimes called the "Totohaw Falls" by writers of 
the last century. Possibly, it was the name of a tribe. 
Unfortunately, the person who drew up the Totowa 
patent studiously avoided all Indian names of places, 
except "Shighemeck," or we should have had much more 
light on this subject. The Singack and Totowa patents 
are similarly unfortunately defective. 

All the Indians of New Jersey belonged to the Lenni 
Lenape, or to the Mengwe or Mingo natives, the former 
being called Delawares by the whites so constantly that 
the very name is doubtless generally supposed to be of 
Indian origin, instead of being the title of Lord Delaware 



28 

or De la Warre, the first grantee of the State so called. 
The Munc\)s or Monse^s were the most warlike of the 
Lenni Lenape, and stretched across Northern New 
Jersey. Their name is preserved in a little railroad station 
on the Northern Railroad. Probably the Minisink 
Indians were the same tribe. The Senecas and Mohawks 
also at times occupied parts of the province. The Lenape 
and the Mengwe waged deadly war against each other 
for years, and the latter getting other nations to join them 
finally subjugated the Lenapes. Both nations were sub- 
sequently transferred westward, and their meagre rem- 
nants still survive, in part, among the Six Nations in 
Central and Southern New York. During the French 
war of 1 756 the Indians took part with the French, and 
under the notorious half-breed Gen. Brant committed a 
dreadful massacre at the Minisink Valley, near Walpack, 
Sussex county. The New Jersey Legislature at once took 
steps to peaceably extinguish the Indian claims, and most 
of the tribes emigrated to western hunting grounds. The 
Indians were grateful, and the Six Nations in Convention 
at Fort Stanwix in 1 769 in the most solemn manner con- 
ferred upon New Jersey the title of the Great Doer of 
Justice. (Judge Field's Provincial Courts of Nerv 
Jerse]^, p. 5, n.) Indeed, the Indians in New Jersey 
were ever fairly dealt with by the whites in regard to 
their lands, as we have seen before and shall hereafter 
find. When, so recently as 1832, a few distant Dela- 
ware Indians claimed compensation for certain hunting 
and fishing privileges reserved to them by an ancient 
treaty, the Legislature promptly granted them full com- 
pensation, and thus extinguished the last Indian title to a 
foot of New Jersey soil or the privileges thereof. At this 
time an aged Delaware thus addressed the Legislature: 
"Not a drop of our blood have you spilled in battle; not 



29 

an acre of our land have you taken but by our consent. 
These facts speak for themselves, and need no comment. 
They place the character of New Jersey in bold relief 
and bright example to those States, within whose terri- 
torial limits our brethren still remain. Nothing save 
benizens can fall upon her, from the lips of a Lenni 
Lenappu' (Judge Field, uf supra.) 

Wassenaer, in 1624 (cited above), has these notices 
of the Indian character: "They are not, by nature, the 
most gentle. Were there no weapons, especially muskets, 
near, they would frequently kill the Traders for sake of 
the plunder; but whole troops run before live or six 
muskets. At the first coming (of the whites) they were 
accustomed to fall prostrate on the report of the gun ; but 
now they stand still from habit, so that the first Colonists 
will stand in need of protection." "All are very cunning 
in Trade; yea, frequently, after having sold every thing, 
they will go back of the bargain, and that forcibly, in 
order to get a little more ; and then they return upwards, 
being thirty and forty strong." These are the Virginia 
Indians. Of those of the New Netherlands he says: 
"The natives of New Netherland are very well disposed 
so long as no injury is done them. But if any wrong be 
committed against them they think it long till they be 
revenged and should any one against whom they have a 
grudge, be peaceably walking in the woods or going along 
in his sloop, even after a lapse of time, they will slay him, 
though they are sure it will cost them their lives on the 
spot, so highly prized is vengeance among them." "The 
natives are always seeking some advantage by thieving. 
The crime is seldom punished among them. If any one 
commit that offence too often he is stripped bare of his 
goods, and must resort to other means another time." 



30 

When at war, "they are a wicked, bad people, very fierce 
in arms." (Wassenaer, ut supra, pp. 32, 33, 39, 40.) 

De Vries, De Laet and Van der Donck, above cited, 
all agree that the Indians were in general peaceably dis- 
posed toward the whites, trusted in them, looked up to 
them. But when a young Hackensack Indian, son of a 
chief, in drunken wantonness one day shot a carpenter 
who was at work on a house-top, near Jersey City, and 
the Dutch Governor furiously demanded his surrender by 
the other Indians, one of them with great sense replied: 
"that the Europeans were the cause of it; that we ought 
not to sell brandy to the young Indians, which made them 
crazy, they not being used to their liquors; and they saw 
very well that even among our people who were used to 
drink it, when drunk they committed foolish actions, and 
often fought with knives. And therefore, to prevent all 
mischief, they wished we would sell no more spirituous 
liquors to the Indians." {N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol I, 
p. 267.) 

But the Indian is gone. His noiseless tread long ago 
ceased to thread the boundless forests, or to course the 
once great "Minisink Path," that highway from the Rari- 
tan to the Delaware, via the Great Notch and Singack; 
no more does he sail along the placid "Pesayack," in 
quest of the shad once so plentiful; nor does he hunt the 
bounding deer or moose or elk across our wild country. 
He is gone, and save an occasional flint arrow-head, or 
rudely-shapen axe, or infrequent skull, or bit of coarse 
pottery, he has left no trace behind him. No trace? 
Ah, yes! "Words are winged," says Homer, "and 
unless weighted down with meaning will soon fly away." 
The Indian has left behind him that which will never be 
forgotten — his local nomenclature. The musical (and I 
insist upon it that the Indian words are musical) names of 



31 

places that have so often rippled through the dewy lips of 
dusky maidens a century or two ago seem by a potent 
spell of sympathizing Nature to have been affixed forever 
to the places all about us, as a "memento mori," to com- 
pensate in some measure for the destruction of the people 
who first applied those names. And so long as the Great 
Falls of the Passaic are remembered in song or story or 
the annals of the chronicler ; so long as the bare, scraggy 
Preakness mountain rears its rude barriers skyward; 
while the sonorous name Toiowa clings to the Falls neigh- 
borhood ; and the peaceful valley of the Sicomac reminds 
us of the Indians' hopeful burial-customs; and the 
Singack still describes the sunken flats or valley ; and the 
Wagararv yet reminds us of the river's abrupt bending at 
Riverside; and the Pequannock ripples and dashes and 
dances over its rocky bed as merrily as the vowels and 
consonants of its appellation do over the tongue; while 
the softly-spoken Wanaque recalls one of the most charm- 
ing of valleys and prettiest of streams; or the name 
Macop'm savors of delicious pickerel; or IVatchung de- 
scribes the bold bluffs of Garret Mountain — while all 
these aboriginal names cling to spots so familiar to us, and 
so dear to many of us, even though their meanings be lost 
to us, yet still we shall not utterly forget the mysterious 
children of Nature who came and went, and whose 
coming and going seem to us to have been only as a 
shadow flitting across a sunny landscape. 

THE EARLY GOVERNMENT OF NEW JERSEY. 

But this paper has been extended beyond all intention 
or expectation. The part of New Jersey history already 
gone over is so fresh, and has had so little written about 
it, that an unusual interest naturally attaches to it in the 
mind of one with a taste for historical research. 

At this late hour you will gladly pardon me if I give 



32 

but the merest outline of the leading subsequent events of 
New Jersey history. 

First let it be understood that this whole territory was 
included in "Florida" by the Spaniards in 1 535 {vide 
supra) ; in 1610 was called the "New Netherlands"; in 
1648 was called "New Albion" by an ambitious English 
adventurer; but retained the name "New Netherlands' 
till 1664. New York and New Jersey were all this 
time under one Dutch government, Wouter van Trviller 
being sent out in 1630 by the West India Company, as 
above stated. He was succeeded in 1 638 by Wm. Kieft, 
a murderous, cowardly rascal, who early in 1643 insti- 
gated his soldiers to commit one of the most atrocious 
massacres recorded in history, upon a party of friendly 
natives at Pavonia. The redoubtable Peter Stuyvesant 
came after, and remained Governor, Director-General, 
etc., of the whole country till 1664. Then the English, 
who laid claim to the continent ever since Cabot dis- 
covered it in 1497, again because Hudson was an Eng- 
lishman, and again because a daring English captain 
(Argal) had in 1613 or 1614 compelled the hauling 
down of the Dutch flag over Fort Amsterdam. The New 
Haven settlers were very jealous of their Dutch neighbors, 
and once had the temerity to attack New Amsterdam, 
but were promptly repelled by the doughty Stuyvesant. 
Foiled, but not despairing, the New England people 
called on the Protector, Cromwell, in 1653, to establish 
the English claim to the New Netherlands, and he actu- 
ally fitted out a fleet for the purpose, but an unexpected 
peace with Holland stopped the meditated expedition. 
Charles II succeeding Cromwell lost no time in assuming 
the sovereignty over the Dutch possessions in America, 
and then at once transferred that sovereignty to his 
brother, the Duke of York, March 12, 1663-4, who in 



33 

turn (June 23-4, 1664) transferred to Lord John 
Berkeley and Sir George Carteret the sovereignty over 
what we call New Jersey. Up to this time this territory 
had been identified with what is now New York, as the 
New Netherlands, there being one Governor over the 
whole country. The Duke of York on his accession to 
the ownership sent out an expedition under Col. Richard 
Nicolls to take possession, and Fort Amsterdam peace- 
ably surrendered to him Sept. 3, 1664, when the place 
was christened New York. The terms granted the Dutch 
were so favorable that they generally remained and be- 
came subjects of Great Britain. Col. Nicolls acted as 
Governor over the united province for a year, and was 
Court, Legislature and all. He prescribed the manner 
of purchases from the Indians, and required a public 
registry of all contracts with them for the soil, before their 
validity would be acknowledged. 

In the Duke of York's grant to Berkeley and Carteret 
it was provided that the tract transferred to them should 
thereafter be called Nova Caesarea or New Jersey — 
because Sir George Carteret had been governor of the 
Island of Jersey, in the English channel, and had there 
afforded a refuge to the future Charles II. ( Whitehead's 
E. /., pp. 30, 31.) The new proprietors in 1665 made 
arrangements to induce settlements, and proclaimed a 
written constitution for the government of the new colony 
— perhaps the very first in America, for it went far 
beyond the Dutch "Charter of Liberties" granted in 
1 629. The government of the province was entrusted to 
a governor (appointed by the proprietors), and a council 
of 6 to 12 persons chosen by the governor, and an 
assembly of twelve representatives, chosen annually by 
the freemen of the province, and this Legislature was 
given, virtually, absolute power in the government of the 



34 

province, so much so, indeed, that "no tax could be justly 
imposed on them, without their own consent and the 
authority of their own general assembly" — which right 
they insisted upon, and successfully, too, as early as 1 680 
(Whitehead's E. J., p. 81 ), or nearly a century before 
that plea was generally raised by the American colonies, 
and with far greater justification than in the case of most 
of the others. 

As Grahame puts it: "Thus the whole of New Jersey 
was promoted at once from the condition of a conquered 
country to the rank of a free and independent province, 
and rendered in political theory the adjunct, instead of 
the mere dependency, of the British empire. It would 
not be easy to point out, in any of the political writings or 
harangues of which that period was abundantly prolific, a 
more manly and intrepid exertion for the preservation of 
liberty, than we behold in this first successful defence of 
the rights of New Jersey. One of the most remarkable 
features of the plea which the colonists maintained, was 
the unqualified and deliberate assertion, that no tax could 
be justly imposed on them without their own consent and 
the authority of their own provincial assembly. The re- 
port of the commissioners and the relief that followed, 
were virtual concessions in favor of this principle, which 
in an after age was destined to obtain a more signal 
triumph in the national independence of North America." 
{Grahame' s Col. Hist, quoted by Judge Field, ut supra, 
pp. 38, 39.) 

Philip Carteret, brother^ of Sir George, was commis- 
sioned as Governor in 1 665, sailed for New Jersey, and 
landing at Elizabethtown gave that spot (settled a year 
or two earlier) its name, in honor of his brother's wife. 
He made arrangements to settle Perth Amboy and 

i[A fourth cousin. Note, 1912.] 



35 

Woodbridge, and the former was the seat of government 
of East Jersey for a century afterwards, and to this day 
there are deposited there the earhest registers of land- 
titles and transfers, from 1676-1702.^ In 1668 Gov. 
Carteret summoned the first Assembly, which met at 
Elizabethtown, fifteen years before the first Assembly of 
New York. Bergen sent Casper Steenmetts and Bal- 
thazar Bayard to this first Legislature in New Jersey. At 
this time and for some years later, judicial powers were 
also vested in the Governor and his Council. {Field^s 
Provincial Courts of N. /., pp. — .) 

Under the new government the land was granted on 
condition of the payment of a yearly quit-rent to the pro- 
prietors, of half a penny an acre. In 1 672, on one plea 
and another, many of the settlers refused to pay this rent, 
and anarchy ensued. Governor Carteret went to Eng- 
land (leaving John Berry as Deputy), and had his 
authority confirmed by the Duke of York and King 
Charles himself, and Berkeley and Carteret. 

Now the Dutch suddenly swept down on the country 
and again took possession of the quondam "New Nether- 
lands," but they interfered with no individual rights, and 
the code of laws promulgated "By the Schout and Magis- 
trates of Achter Kol Assembly," held at Elizabethtown, 
Nov. 18, 1673, was very mild. A few months later 
peace was declared between England and Holland, and 
the American provinces were restored to the English. 

Now the Duke of York obtained from King Charles a 
new patent for New York and New Jersey, and sent out 
Edmund Andros as Governor, July 1 st, 1 674, all former 
grants being reaffirmed. About this time Carteret's title 

^[An error. These records were transferred to Trenton, in accord- 
ance with an Act of the Legislature, passed November 25, 1790. 
Note, 1912.] 



36 

was renewed by the King, and the Duke gave him indi- 
vidually the northern half of New Jersey, and Philip 
Carteret returned to assume the rule of the province. The 
southern or West Jersey half of the province had been 
sold by Lord Berkeley, and a few years later passed into 
the hands of a company. The two halves of the Province 
were thenceforward, for nearly a century, known as East 
Jersey and West Jersey, sometimes having two Gov- 
ernors, and always having two Assemblies, and their 
government, mode of selling lands, etc., were entirely 
different. The line between the two Provinces gave no 
end of trouble for sixty years. The general course of that 
line as laid out in 1 687 may be noticed on any county 
map of New Jersey. 

Gov. Andros of New York continually interfered with 
Gov. Carteret, and finally assumed authority over East 
Jersey, at Elizabeth, in 1680; brutally seized Carteret, 
carried him to New York, and had him tried by a special 
court on a charge of unlawfully assuming authority. The 
court refused to convict, though ordered to do so by 
Andros, but Carteret was required to stay away from 
East Jersey, while Andros went over to Jersey and asked 
the Assembly to confirm him in possession. This they 
nobly refused to do, and asserted that the great Magna 
Charta and the "Concessions" of the Lords Proprietors 
were superior to his claims, or even to a subsequent decree 
of royalty itself! A few months later the Duke of York 
disclaimed Andros's acts, and Carteret was restored to 
the government of East Jersey. Sir George Carteret 
dying in 1679, devised East Jersey to certain trustees, 
who offered it for sale to the highest bidder, and in 1 681 -2 
it was bought by Wm. Penn and eleven other Quakers, 
for £3,400, and they took in twelve other associates. 



Z7 

Gov. Carteret died December, 1682, and was buried in 
New York — the precise place being unknown. 

He was succeeded by others from time to time, who 
ruled with indifferent success, the people gradually grow- 
ing more discontented, till in 1 702, in response to the 
popular demand,^ the Lords Proprietors resigned the gov- 
ernment to the English Crown. For some years New 
York and New Jersey were under one Royal Governor, 
but this did not suit the Jerseymen, who were ever jealous 
of their liberties, and thereafter they were given a Gov- 
ernor of their own. Of the events that led to the Revolu- 
tion, there is not time now to speak. Suffice it to say, that 
New Jersey was in the van of patriotic colonies, and her 
Provincial Congress proclaimed the independence of the 
Province, July second, 1 776, — two days before the 
immortal Declaration of the United Colonies at Phila- 
delphia. New Jersey's part in the subsequent Revolution, 
and her career from then till now has been glorious, and 
unmarked by a single stain on her bright escutcheon. 
7 hat it may be ever so, should be our earnest wish and 
constant endeavor. 

^[And conceding the doubtful legality of the royal grant of 
Charles II, alienating from the crown its sovereignty over New 
Jersey.] 






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